Susan Was Always First

Wrathful Blade

"Uhmmm... ugh." Wrath's eyes fluttered open, only for her to wish that they were closed.

The teen found herself surrounded by men who were clearly knights of Narnia, and who were looking at her none too kindly. There was one man... no, he was not fully human-was he a faun, perhaps?-well, he seemed like a scholar more than a knight. He stood with wide eyes, glancing at a note he held. 

"The hell do you want?" She spat out, though on the inside she was trembling. She had angered Envy, and that was all she could remember. Had she pushed too far? Was this... would this be her end? 

The faun stepped forward. "I would be careful with your words, child. Appearing in the courtyard soaked in blood clearly not your own, and with a letter on you about committing regicide..."

"Aslan above!" The girl let out a string of curses following her exclamation. "It was all Greed and Envy! Those bastards! I'm to be their scapegoat?"

The faun raised a brow but did not reply to her words, instead shifting the topic back to the matter at hand. He did not know how greed or envy could use someone as their scapegoat, unless the girl was saying those sins led her to her actions? 

"Your name, girl?"

"Piss off!"

One of the knights shifted to step towards her, but the faun put his arm out to stop him. Stepping closer to Wrath, he spoke again.

"Ah, yes. I forget my manners. It is rude to ask a lady her name without first introducing oneself, isn't it? I am Ell, court scribe and former tutor to Queen Lucy. Now, child, your name?"

Her anger could no longer mask her fear, having been shown a civility she had not been in a long time. Quietly, Wrath spoke her true name, and let the men lead her to what she knew would be her death...

---

"Where is Insolence!" Envy barked to a group of gathered people. They were merchants and spies who worked for the sins, all being titled after lesser traits. With Wrath out of the picture, they needed someone to replace her. There was only one person Envy would trust with the job, yet she was also the one person Envy had not wanted to pull into this chaos. "I need her at once!"

A slim figure stepped up from the back of the crowd. Her head was held high, and her heeled shoes clicked with each step she took, drawing all eyes to her. Curtsying, the brunette hair of the woman draped across her face, hiding her vivid amber eyes. 

"I am at your beck-and-call, dear sister."

---

"Where is she?" Caspian spat out the words, eyes narrowed. "Where is the girl they found in the courtyard?"

Lucy put her arm out to stop the man from charging out of the room. "I have Ell seeing to questioning her, and Edmund will be joining him shortly."

She knew letting Caspian in there with his current state of mind would do no good. He was too grief stricken to think straight, was too rash in his recent actions to listen to the girl. 

"Lucy, let me speak with her." Caspian tried to keep anger out of his voice when directing words to his sister-in-law, but the tone remained. 

"You are not thinking clearly right now, brother. I would not see you act in a way that would be ill-fitting a king of Narnia." The people already whispered about his moods, about the way he had changed. Some feared he was going mad, while others feared him one day succumbing to his grief and deciding to join his wife in her fate...

Caspian's eyes remained narrowed, but his body relaxed, shoulder's dropping and hands no longer clenched. "I see. So that is how I am viewed now, a widower who is lost to his grief and incapable of leading?"

"Caspian-" Lucy started, but her cut her off. 

"You know, Susan would be showing now." He sat down in a chair, burying his face into his hands. "We'd be discussing names, picking godparents. Neighboring countries would be sending gifts instead of sympathies..."

Lucy moved to his side and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Don't think Edmund and I are not thinking these same things. I was overjoyed at the thought of being an aunt, and Edmund, well, you know he had started working on gifts for the child..."

"I still think she's alive out there." The hopeful tone in his voice crept to the foreground. 

"We all wish that." The unspoken but we know that it is very unlikely hung in the air.

---

"So, you're telling us that you are part of a society that names themselves after the deadly sins, and that my siblings are alive?" Edmund spoke quickly. "Well?"

The girl known as Wrath nodded. "Yes..."

"And you admit to the torture of my pregnant sister and my brother at your hands?"

"Yes..."

Edmund shot a glance to Ell. "Fetch Lucy and Caspian. They will want to hear this."

Ell dipped his head and left the room quickly, leaving Wrath and Edmund alone. The girl was unarmed, and seemed to have given up, so there was no worry she would be able to harm the Just King.

Edmund could not believe this girl's story. It seemed almost too well thought out and rehearsed to be real. However, he had run into schemes much less realistic...

She was so young. Barely a teenager. How had the world turned to treat her so cruelly, this young girl? What could drive a child to this sort of action...

Silence spoke louder than any words could, the only noise heard being Edmund tapping his thumb on the hilt of his sword. He did not wish to put a child to death, but with her actions, that was the punishment fitting the crime. Unless... Edmund lost himself to a thought quickly, letting his mind scheme this over. Perhaps that would work to save her... 

Quick footsteps were heard echoing down the hall before the door was flung open and Lucy and Caspian entered, the door being pulled closed behind them by Ell. 

"Where is my wife?" Caspian demanded, approaching her quickly. "Where is your base?"

Wrath shook her head. "I told them! I don't know! No one besides Greed knows the real location and out of the rest of us only Envy knows how to enter it. She's the one who guides us there."

"I don't believe you." Caspian's hand moved towards the blade at his side as if of its own accord.

 "I'll ask once again." The blade flashed as he drew it, reflecting the scared eyes of the teen and the harsh eye of the grief-stricken king. "Where is my wife?"